The Joker's Closin' In
by CoryphaeusRex
Summary: Bellatrix is unhappy in her marriage, so agrees to have a game of strip poker with Rookwood. Pre First Wizarding War. Het PWP, M-rated for a reason. Written as a trade with thedragonchaser.


**Author's Notes & Disclaimer:** Half of yet another trade with thedragonchaser. I'm trading fics, she's trading chapters. Special Relationship, anyone? [/political comment] But it's okay, because I love her to bits, as she is my awesome Sev-pants. This is Bellatrix/Rookwood, which is a bit out of left-field, but hey, it's PWP, I don't need to know _all_ that much about a character to pull this stuff off. M rated for sex, not as extreme as I usually take it but sex nonetheless. Read and review, and give your local Death Eaters some luvv.

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"Strrrrip poker?" Bellatrix rolls the R as she raises an eyebrow at Rookwood. He's got his arm around her shoulders, has done since they opened the third bottle of elf-made wine, and she seems to have just realised she's settled into him quite comfortably. Now she's sitting up, leaning a little away from him, back against the arm of the green velvet couch, drunkenly leering at him over the top of her bosom, pushed up by the black corset.

"Yeah," he says, using the same voice he uses every day in the Ministry. "It'll be fun. Honest."

She leans forwards, her mouth curling up into a wicked smile, and pokes him in the chest. He's so close he can see where her lipstick has rubbed off onto the goblet, leaving only smudges behind.

"You're gonna _lose_, Mister," she grins, and cracks her knuckles. He rises from the sofa, reluctantly leaving the spot that has been made warm by both of their bodies, and goes to his coat, rifling in his pockets for the deck of cards.

There are twenty-five ways that Rookwood knows to cheat at poker. He's sure there are a few more, but with Bella in this state it won't take even two. He shuffles, deals, decides immediately that he's going to lose the first round to put her at her ease. Rookwood isn't above degrading himself to get what he wants, he does it every day in the line of duty.

He shows her a straight, waits for her to realise she's been dealt a full house, and watches her triumphant smirk as he unties his tie, slowly and deliberately, with his slender pianist's fingers, and drops it to one side. He enjoys watching her lips curl, showing the un-lipsticked bits, the cracks in her perfection.

"See?" she purrs at him, pulling the bottle of wine towards her and taking an unladylike swig straight from it. "You're going _down_."

_On you_, Rookwood thinks, and allows himself a smile at the thought. He takes the cards, shuffles them again, deals again and this time it's her who's lost the round and has to remove something. She's got earrings at her disposal, and a very expensive antique necklace that's probably been in her family for generations, but she chooses, oddly, her left stocking. She kicked her shoes off earlier in the night and now she pulls her skirt up so he can see the paleness of the inside of her thigh, and she slips her thumbs between the lace and the skin and she takes it off, pouting like a Muggle pin-up and pointing her toe as she pulls the thin black silk from her toes. Her toenails are painted dark purple, Rookwood notices.

"Very nice, my dear," he says, and deals again.

Next to go, illogically, is her top, a long-sleeved affair that comes down in a deep V, showing the top of her corset. She opens every button with a deliberate flick of the wrist, and Rookwood meets her smouldering gaze, thinking about exactly what else she could use that wrist-flicking skill for. This was a _very_ good idea on his part.

Rodolphus had done something to distress Bellatrix, so easy now that she was trapped in this marriage with him, making her mother very proud and herself miserable. Everyone knew who she was _really_ lusting after, and it was like the elephant in the room when the Malfoys threw one of their interminable dinner parties.

So Rookwood, from the boundless depths of charity in his soul, had offered Bellatrix a shoulder to cry on, several bottles of his best 1837 wine, and a 'good time'. Either she hadn't been able to read the subtitles, or she had and didn't care. The latter is looking distinctly more likely, as she slips her top from her shoulders and he sees the beautiful hourglass shape her corset forces her into. So narrow, he bets he could get both his hands around her waist easy. But there will be time for that later.

There are vines on her corset, velvet vines against the black satin that are only visible if she shifts into a certain light. He wonders what it might be like to touch them, and his fingers run over the edge of the cards in anticipation.

He lets her win the next one, taking off his belt and laying it on top of his tie, and then she's back on her losing streak. The other stocking comes off, and she tosses it over to him, like a striptease artist in a bar. He takes it, crushes it between his fingers and raises it to his lips while she's busy swigging from the bottle of wine. The smell of Bellatrix's thighs is sweet and heady and he _really_ hopes she's game for this.

Next to go is her skirt, and she stands up, unsteady on her drink-soaked legs, and undoes the zip at the back. She lets it drop in one swift movement and he can see the black thong she's wearing. It matches her corset, and he almost laughs. He couldn't have arrange this better if he'd _tried_.

He's so impressed with the whiteness of her legs and the fact that this is _Bellatrix Lestrange_, married woman, sitting before him in only her underwear, he feels it's only fair to get on equal terms with her. He loses the next two rounds, and his shirt and trousers go the same way as his tie. He's been on Muggle cover for the past two months, and robes are starting to feel unnatural, so he's been lounging around his room dressed in jeans and tracksuits, anything to get rid of that awful draught.

He sits in his boxers, she in her fancy underwear, and he deliberately deals her the hand that is going to show him something that only her husband sees. He's glad the coffee table is shielding his crotch from her line of sight, it's somewhat embarrassing to be so affected by her. But Bellatrix has always known how beautiful she is, she must have known how many Slytherin boys stained their sheets thinking of her in Hogwarts, Rookwood amongst them.

She shows him a full house, triumphantly, he shows her a straight flush, and he sees the smile change as her hands begin to flick open the tiny hook-and-eye fastenings at the front of her corset.

"You play a dirty game, Mr. Rookwood," she says, as the first one comes open. This doesn't make much of a change, her breasts are still pushed up and her cleavage still a thin line.

"I do try my best," he says, and another one is opened.

"You know," she says, as number three gives way. "I'm a married woman."

"How could I ever forget?" he says, and she flicks open number four. Her cleavage has gone from a thin line to a shadow, as her breasts grow less restricted by the corset.

"Is this appropriate for a married woman, do you think?" There goes number five, and now he can see her sternum, the faint shadow between her breasts, shaping the curves. She pauses, at the one underneath, at the base of her ribs, until he answers.

"I think this is _very_ appropriate," he leers at her, and she snaps another fastening open. Her breasts shift inside the corset, and he's overcome by the urge to bury his face between them, drink in the scent of her like it's the last gulp of oxygen before he dives to the ocean floor.

"You would, you dirty cheat," she murmurs, "you filthy, perverted degenerate."

The words electrify him, and he scrambles over the coffee table, scattering his carefully marked cards to the floor, bearing her down underneath him. She laughs, and it inflames him. He does what he wanted, buries his face in the centre of her chest, kisses and licks and bites at the soft white flesh until bruises start to show.

With one hand, she unfastens the uncomfortable garment and it falls to the floor, the steel bones keeping their shape so it looks like a rack of meat. Rookwood isn't looking at that, though, he's nipping at Bellatrix's neck and she's pulling down those horrendous Muggle boxers and he's got those perfect, pale breasts in his perfect, pale hands.

His boxers are round his knees, and he pushes the pathetically thin string of her thong aside before pushing inside her. She wraps her legs around his waist, arms around his neck, and she kisses him.

It's not at all like Rookwood imagined.

It's exactly like he imagined.

He isn't sure any more, as her lipstick smudges on his mouth and he can taste the wine on her breath.

"Rookwood, you filthy bastard," she snarls at him, and it puts a new fire in his blood. "Fuck me."

Who is he to disobey? He rides her til she screams, pounding away as though his life depends on it, hot and fast and hard, all the way in and then all the way out again. There's a card stuck to his knee, which he only realises because it keeps catching on the carpet.

"Bitch," he whispers in her ear. "Fucking whore."

She only moans louder, and claws at his back, leaving big long lines of pain and making his movements more violent. He comes, with a grunt, far too quickly, and he sees her eyelids flutter closed as he pulls out of her, looking for something to clean himself off with. He finds a spare shirt, it's his room after all, and as he's wiping his cock, almost sore from the speed and the intensity of the experience, he glances over to her.

She's sat up, and on her back is a livid red carpet burn. He crawls over, licks a trail up her shoulder blade.

"Any time you need a shoulder to cry on," he says, and he hears her laugh under her breath.


End file.
